Bench Press, work up to a raw max single, then keep going up to a three board max singlePull-Ups x 60 total paired with Dips x 100 totalMachine Row 2 x 15 paired with Cable Triceps Extensions 2 x 15You might have to go easy on the dips if your joints are a bit beat up after the heavy benching. I usually do about half the pull-ups during my bench press warm-ups (back and forth), then when the weight gets heavy I stop the pull-ups until I am done benching. You really can't do enough pull-ups/chin-ups. They will keep your shoulders healthy and make your back look and function great. If you think you are good enough at pull-ups and don't have to work them any harder, check out this video. Just don't forget to train your legs!

Hey guys, check out this link to a nice workout Jay sent me, http://ezinearticles.com/?Nasty-Kettlebell-Complex-For-Gladiators!&id=2939431

I bought a pair of Metal Ace Pro Briefs for my max effort squat work a couple of months ago to help keep my hips healthy and handle more weight out of the monolift. For the recreational trainer, don't bother with briefs unless you have hip problems. Even then you are still better off just spending some time doing mobility and rehab/prehab drills. Trust me, don't neglect your joints if they ache, my right hip seized up on my for 10 weeks four years ago. I couldn't even walk for a few days! Talk about too much wide stance squatting! Anyways, for powerlifters briefs are great. They will increase your total and make your hips feel great during warm-ups and easier sets. The Metal Ace Pro Briefs are the first and only briefs I have ever used, so I can't compare them to other briefs, but I can tell you this; The have increased my squat tremendously, and I can squat far wider than before without feeling any pains in my hips! Now the briefs took a lot longer to break in than I thought. I almost gave up on them altogether until I learned the secret of compression shorts and my training did a magical overnight leg stretch. Ultimately, these are pro briefs, and will be a bitch to break in but when they do you will be very, very impressed. After seeing what these briefs did for my squat, all the guys on the powerlifting team are switching over to them. So, if you aren't sure what briefs to go with, I recommend the Metal Ace Pro Briefs. This is a video of a guy, not me, squatting in these briefs. Notice how high they ride up on your stomach compared to other briefs. To me they are really just the bottom of a squat suit.

Hey guys, if you have nothing better to do and actually read this blog of mine, you may have noticed that about half the comments posted are shameless acai berry plugs by oh so savy internet marketers. I let them post because I don't like the idea of manipulating my comments, it's sort of a free speech concept I guess. I am sure you have all come across this silly phenomenom of acai berry mlm businesses/scams since you are all involved in the health and fitness world in one way or another. Does it annoy you as much as it annoys me? I mean come on people. The acai berry is just another nutritious berry. Not as nutritious as the blue berry mind you, but how could one run a mlm blueberry scam? I hate this crap. As Martin Rooney wrote in an recent T-Nation article, "And the acai berry shit they sell in the US as the cure-all miracle elixir is vastly different than actual fresh acai berries. Things are often better when you get to the source, and I wanted to see if that held true for training." It's just the modern version of the wild west's snake oil salesman! What a joke. People, I know some of you don't want to hear this, but the only way to lose weight is to eat properly for your body (it could be low carb, it could be low fat) including a ton of veggies and sources of quality lean proteins. Cut out all the processed foods and nutrionally void foods. And exercise like a man or woman possessed! There is a reason why all those mma dudes are so damn lean. 6 days a week of hard core metabolic work will make you lean. A magic pill or potion will not.

Hey guys, I just found a new kettlebell blog worth checking out. This one really focuses on the basics/fundamentals of kettlebell training. Check it out here: Kettlebell Basics

AM Mobility WorkDynamic Warm-Up (reverse lunge with twist, side lunge, inch worm, Russian twist, t-push-up)Glute Work with Push-Up variations between sets (bridge, bird dog, single leg bride, clam shell)PM Kettlebell Sit-Ups (lie down, press a kettlebell overhead, do a sit-up keeping the kettlebell overhead)Kettlebell Complex, 4 sets of 5-10 reps per drill using 2 kettlebellsCleanPressRack LungeSwingRack SquatOver Head TwistsKettlebell Windmill, 1 or 2 kettlebells depending on the weights available to you, 4 x 5 per side

Mariusz Pudzianowski has won the world's strongest man contest 5 times, making him the most dominant strongman of all time. Some guys at the gym were telling me that he is now doing mma! I didn't believe them at first, seeing as he is a very successful pro-strongman, I wondered what a man like this had to gain by switching sports. Well, it's true, he has made his mma debut. Watching this made me think about martial arts and lifting weights as means of self defense. I used to do boxing and thai boxing, but would always lose a lot of muscle mass and strength when I took my training to the competitve level, dropping to just under 200 lbs at my lightest. When I got back into powerlifting my weight went up by 30 lbs withouth much increase in fat. Obviously my strength increased tremendously during this time. So the question is, would I be better off in a street fight at 198 lbs, lean and skilled or 225 lbs big and strong as a bull? To be honest, I feel safer at 225 lbs because I know if a fight turns to grappling I pick up and throw almost any regular dude. At that lighter weight, my striking is better for sure, but a big fat guy might be able to handle me on the ground. Anyways, it's just food for thought. What impresses me about Pudzianowski is that he is massive, lean, fit and even appears to have some skill (he used to be an amateur boxer as a youth). Now that is a dangerous man! It is the huge amount of strength he posses that makes him so much more dangerous than your average heavyweight. Just like Brock Lesnar, incredible strength can make up for a lack of skill against most opponents. So all you scrawny wanna be ninja's out there, start squatting, pressing and deadlifting or you might find yourself pinned down school boy style in a fight unable to use all your sweet moves! If you are a competitve mma/boxer/wrestler and require a tremendous amount of time devoted to your sport I understand that, I have been there. I would recommend following Pavel's Power to the People regime. It is an abreviated strength training routine designed for the busy athlete. In summary, 5-6 days a week do 2 sets of 5 reps of deadlifts and over head pressing. Each workout increase the weight until you are maxing, then drop the weight some and start working your way up in an attempt to blow past your old max. It is a slow, steady and effective method of training. For the recreational ninja, I like a 3 days of lifting, and 3 days of sports training is great. You will have a good balance of both strength, fitness and skill. Keep in mind though, a general routine like this will not make you great at anything. You could probably do full body workouts each time, or do a squat workout, a pressing workout and a deadlift workout once you are more advanced. Now, if you just want to get so big nobody will ever try you out, just park yourself in the squat rack. Train, eat, sleep, repeat. To get strong do a lot of heavy lifting, for size do some high volume work with high reps, and some conditioning work with very high reps like complexes or kettlebell drills. A get huge weekly routine might look like this: Day One, Heavy Squats or Deadlifts with some higher rep assistance work done afterwardsDay Two, Heavy Pressing with some higher rep assistance work done afterwardsDay Three, Metabolic Work, kettlebells, complexes, body weight circuits, etc. But use weight instead of jogging or "cardio"Day Four, Lower Body Hypertrophy, moderately heavy squats or deads for high sets and reps, 7 x 5, 4 x 10, maybe even one set of 20 reps to death! Plus assistance work afterwardsDay Five, Upper Body Hypertrophy, moderately heavy pushing an pulling work, same as day four.Day 6, Metabolic Work, same as day three.Day 7, Nothing! Eat, sleep, talk to a nice girl instead of your smelly gym buddies!Whichever path you choose, train hard and be sure to eat and sleep enough to acheive your goals. And most importantly, have fun!

Scott Sonnon demonstrates TACFIT Grappler 1D Workout: For Time, Compete 6 Rounds Non-Stop: * 10 Double Kettlebell Jerk * 10/10 Kettlebell Yaw Push Press * 10/10 Clubbell Shovel Press Side Rockit * 5/5 Clubbell Wheel Cast * 10 Clubbell Iron Cross * 10 Clubbell Double Shoulder Cast * 10 Clubbell Bent-over W Row * 10 Recline Plyometric Rope Climb * 10/10 Band Seonage - Kneeling * 10/10 Band Seonage - Jumping * R.E.S.E.T. Breathing to 65% of your maximum heart rate before the next round

I am in Bangalore, India on a work assignment. It is an amazing place I tell you, friend me, Nathan Donahue, on Facebook or flickr to see the pics. Be sure to mention the blog or I will think you are a creep and not friend you! Anyways, it is an amazing place but not the easiest city to find a proper gym. Especially one with barbells and dumbbells instead of just cardio machines and some mulit-gyms. Needless to say I let this challenge get in my way and failed to train my first few days here. In other words, I bitched out. Luckily I have friends with strong posterior chains who are always looking to motivate me! This video was sent to me by Paul Vaillancourt, professional strongman and owner of Ultimate Fitness. He is doing the massive trap bar deadlift at 20 seconds in. After watching this video I realized I was being a soft little girly man and letting this obstacle prevent me from reaching my goals. As the saying goes, "the weak see obstacles as an inconvenience, warriors see them as challenges!". So, since checking myself I have been hitting the "gym" in the hotel hard. My first workout was pretty simple and not overly challenging as the heat kicked my ass pretty quick. Here it is: mobility work, 30 mins in my hotel room10 pound dumbbell circuit in the "gym", these are the heaviest dumbbells there!Series of high pulls, clean and presses, presses, rows, lunges, squat thrusters, one leg deadlifts, jumping jacks, push-ups, and overhead twits to failure, 30 minutesJump rope to failurePretty basic and honestly not very well thought out. Oh well, the important thing here is I broke the cycle of missing workouts due to a lack of kettlebells or barbells and got back in the game. Tomorrow is another day and a chance for a better training session.India is famous for yoga, which doesn't really interest me, but it also has these traditional wrestling schools called Akara's where locals lift stones and wrestle in the sand. If I can find one of those places it would be awesome!

For all new posts please go to the new Big Time Weight Loss Blog.

by: Jayson Hunter Registered Dietitian, CSCSWe are going to be talking a little bit about the confusion there was on the show The Biggest Loser, a lot of people watch that show. In the first week all these people, extremely heavy people lost a ton of weight and then the second week really nobody lost any weight. In fact, to my knowledge, one person gained one pound. So, I want to explain what the confusion is and what exactly happens when you have that rapid weight loss. So, why did people see such amazing results the first week and see none the second week?If we just use this show as an example. They saw so much weight loss in the first week because they obviously tell you that they are on a special type of diet, they don’t really go into the details of what it is, but I can assume that it’s a higher protein, low carb diet. These people are obviously 300/400 lbs because they were eating too much, they were over eating, ingesting thousands and thousands of calories. So, when they got to The Biggest Loser, of course they restricted those calories and put them on a special type of diet. Glycogen is created from the carbohydrates and starches that you eat. So, for every gram that you store in your body, you also store 3-4 grams of water. If you look at it from the stand point of maybe someone was eating 500 – 700 grams of carbs and they were storing all this glycogen and they cut it to 200 grams of carbs, well you can also cut out about 3-4 grams of water for every one of those carbs you just cut out. And obviously that’s weight on the scale. The metabolism kind of goes into shock when this happens so you lose all that glycogen and the extra grams of water which is weight in the end, and then not to mention they were exercising like crazy which none of them had really done before, so they’re going to lose water weight anyway from the amount of perspiration and body changes that are taking place and all the stuff that your body has to do to adapt to that exercise now. Your body generally fluctuates about 3-4% on a daily basis anyway. If you look at it from the stand point of some of those men are 300-400 pounds, a 3 %- 4 % change could be, 12 pounds in either direction. And obviously women that are 200 lbs or 250 lbs, you’re looking at maybe 10 lbs in either direction, 8 lbs in either direction, somewhere in there. Women tend to fluctuate even more then men in regards to water weight on a daily basis just because of the hormone levels. When you saw the weight loss they were getting, such as 15 lbs, 18lbs, I think someone lost 29lbs. Most of that is the initial shift because of eating less carbs, eating less calories as well as just general water weight loss because of the increased activity that they were now doing. It’s very important for people to understand that when you start, you can see these dramatic results but it’s permanent lifestyle changes that allow you to have fast, safe permanent weight loss but its permanent in the sense that you can start by taking off 15 – up to 15lbs in 30 days, but things are going to level off, and you have to make behavioral changes, you have to change your life. There are no quick fixes for anything.If you go to the extreme and say, and again we don’t know exactly what diet The Biggest Loser people are on, but a lot of people go on what they call, a true low carb diet, and a true low carb diet is, maybe 30 grams of carbs for the entire day. It’s low. It’s essentially nothing. When you go on that type of diet it really wreaks havoc on your metabolism, Your goal is to be cycling your carb intake which is going to get you that fast weight loss, but not sacrifice your metabolism because you want that metabolism to be fast all the time. That’s the number one goal.Your body works a certain way and that’s true for all of us, so you need to know the science behind it and while you can lose weight fast, safely and keep that metabolism up, you’re going to need to make those permanent lifestyle changes to keep it off. Don’t get caught up in these changes, these extreme changes of “Man how did they lose 30lbs and I can’t lose a pound.” You got to compare apples to apples here and see what positions their in and see what you’ve been in because as you noticed as you watched the second week of the biggest loser, those guys lost 2lbs, 3lbs, someone gained a pound and that’s their body going through that transition and almost going into a survival mode. I think you’ll find that as you keep watching the show; their weight will start to be more consistent where they’ll consistently lose 2lbs of fat a week or 3lbs of fat a week. You won’t see this wild swing of losing 30 lbs then losing 0 lbs even though they worked just as hard and ate just the same, because your body’s going to adjust, and your body – your metabolism will slowly speed back up and the goal is to try not to get that metabolism to slow down to begin with, try to keep it up at an elevated rate so that it is a consistent, permanent weight loss.Jayson Hunter RD, CSCS is the author of the Carb Rotation Diet. To discover the 5 absolute truths Every Serial Dieter Who Seeks Rapid-Weight loss MUST come to grips with visit The Carb Rotation Diet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjuNmNu4RQg